WHAT IS SECURITY, REALLY?

CNN Article: Investigators Smuggle Bombs Parts into Federal Buildings

I seems like every time a study is done on our national security, in whatever areas we choose to do it in (be it at ports, on airplanes, and now, in federal buildings), we fail with flying colors. Not long after 9/11, I remember the Time article about national security, claiming that only something like 2% of the crates that pass through our ports actually get inspected. Ultimately, I think our at-the-door security is, and always will be, woefully inadequate to protect ourselves from another terrorist attack. That isn't to say we can't protect ourselves; I do believe diplomatic and intelligence efforts working together can do the bulk of the job. However, if a terrorist gets to the door with a bomb, and nothing has stopped him yet, people are going to die, and a guard with an X-ray machine isn't really going to be able to stop him as well as we'd like to think.

I'd like to use this article to make two points about our security: first, the at-the-door security (i.e. the guy running a porn site from his post - I'm not making this up, read the article!) is mostly designed to accomplish two things: to make white, middle-class Americans feel safe flying and otherwise going about their daily lives, and to make the administration (first Bush, continuing with Obama) look like they're trying to keep us safe. We don't see diplomatic efforts to get Pakistan to help us look for the Taliban; we don't see the spies in Arab countries getting intel on terrorist organizations, and those efforts don't score political points or make us feel better. Guards with machine guns do. There's no reason to have the national guard in Penn Station (or whoever; they carry fucking machine guns. Like, really?).

That being said, though, in combination with intel and diplomacy, as long as we continue to meddle in other countries' affairs (and we will, as long as there are vested interests who stand to benefit from that meddling, and as long as we have a system that allows them to get what they want), we are going to need at-the-door security to help guard against specific threats. If we get intel that a building is going to be bombed, we need people who are there who are going to be able to protect that building. Personally, I don't want that type of job contracted out to a private company; I want someone who who is beholden to the US Government, and by extension, the people the United States. I don't want someone who only answers to a private company, whose prime goal is to make money.

This may sound contradictory, and in a sense, it is. I don't think our security is or will be that good, but if anyone is going to do it, the government should, because if we're going to pay for protection, the free market isn't going to get you the best security, it's going to get you the cheapest.

"He also said security is 'budget-driven; it's not risk-driven.'"

Although it doesn't say so in the article, I would bet the primary reason for this is due the organization being a private contractor. There are plenty of stories from contractors in Iraq (which I don't think people realize, but that was essentially a privately-contracted war; read the The Shock Doctrine) using shoddy materials and bilking the government out of the cost of full-price goods. There was one story in the book where the company contracted to run the Baghdad airport using fork lifts that were already there, repainting them, and charging the government for the cost of brand new ones (this is from memory, so I could be wrong or slightly different; however, the idea is still the same).

The market should provide most goods and services, but there are plenty of instances where the government should be providing some of these things. This happens to be one of them.

Military and defense run for-profit is a most evil type of creature, as the expansion of war and death essentially becomes the programmed goal of that organization. The last thing we need is more of that.